enough with the babble, this was last Sunday


my mom bought me a few periplus mini cookbooks and now i'm dying to make lemon bars. it's weird, i've never been a citrus person but it's never too late to start, i guess? amalina (aka my resident food taster/tester), please cleanse your palate so you may
taste & judge my (would be) lemon bars!

how do you explain making a joke about taking 3 days to update one entry and actually taking 3 days to update one entry? self fulfilling prophecy? is the social psychology ghost of polytechnic past paying me a visit?

i've just been distracted, i guess, even more so than usual. and not the "ponder about the future" kind either, more of the "why's that? what's that? who's that?" sort. i've got the wandering mind of an kaypohinquisitive 6 year old. what can i say, the internet's fucking distracting.

let me create a sort of timeline since i last updated. first things first, KL trip!

the short vay-cay was over in a blink of an eye but it was memorable as hell.
"bapak besar maner?!"

shortly before i left for KL, i got a sweet email from the people at miotv saying that i won the Top Chef TNP contest (that i took part on a major whim, i submitted it on the very last day) so yeay for that! i hardly ever win anything so that was cool but lets be honest, i was probably the only one who took part in it lol.

btw for those who have no idea what Top Chef is, its basically the cooking equivalent of Project Runaway and it is AWESOME. padma lakshmi's the host and i dont care that she bumped uglies with salman 'i've been issued a fatwa' rushdie, loved her in Planet Food, love her in Top Chef.

next on the timeline, mother's day. how was mother's day for you?

i baked my mom these delicious Sugar Donut Muffins and i have to say, this is probably my 2nd favourite muffin of all time (i dont think anything can knock the amazing banana crumb muffin off from the top of my list) and it was ridiculously easy to make.

i also made her a stack of these d-i-y coupons (that i slotted in between her card)

i'll admit, i almost left out the dishes one because that is my most hated household chore of all time. i just dont think im genetically cut out for it. i use way too much soap, i waste way too much water, i take way too much time. but meh, i love my mom more than i hate doing the dishes so i'll learn to deal.

interesting fact about my mom and i; even though we dont look anything alike, we have moles on our faces at the exact same spots! different sizes (the one on her upper lip is bigger than mine, the one on my eyebrow is bigger than hers) but cool nonetheless.

may so far has been pretty decent. i've been doing the usual shit, coffee with the fav people, ichiban boshi (again) with ain (again), having way too much yami yogurt, catching up on my reading... the usual.

2 unusual things happened though. wait, make that 3! when i came back from KL, i discovered that my (9 yr old) modem died. that's ok, it was bound to happen someday, i mean, i cant expect to use the same modem that i used during my icq days to last me forever right? so i got a new one and then a week later, my external hard drive (with 95% of my photos, my movies, my tv shows [my entire OZ/Arrested Development series!!!] and my resume/showreel) suddenly cannot be read on my laptop. rozi and i joked about backing up our back ups because i was always too paranoid to transfer stuff into the hard drive. i guess the joke's on me :/ i am actually sorta amazed at how i'm handling it, i havent had a full blown panic attack yet and im sure thats only because i havent really used up all my other options (to be honest, there aren't that many left) *gulp* so im thinking that it's ok, i can just burn anything else i have on my laptop's hard drive that's taking too much space while i fix/beg my mom for a new external one. but of course, i'm not cinderella, this is not a fairy tale. my cd-rom drive also rosak loh! disbelief is the only emotion i can really say i've been experiencing, i feel like this kid.

also, my body clock's all weird. its like at a point where it's so abnormal, its normal, you know? is it odd that i take 3 hr naps at dusk and/or dawn in lieu of a full 8 hr at night? i dont know, is it? anyways, i have accepted that fact, what i cant accept is the bizarro cravings i get when its like 4 in the morning and i realise that "hey, you slept through dinner you idiot" and my stomach is grumbling to the beat of Boom Boom Pow. i've mentioned having a pancake craving, the other night i had a french toast craving.

why cant i get a craving for something totally effortless like tuna straight out of the can? which will never ever happen because i hate tuna. i shouldnt even complain about effort though, this one didnt take much. 2 slices of bread, 1 egg, 1/2 tablespoon of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla, a dash of cinnamon and you've got yourself ~french toast~

i was also craving this caramel cake when ain reminded me how awesome anything caramel is, so i made it.

if i was gonna grade this, i would give it a B4. the frosting was so sweet, it was almost overwhelming. the cake is something i would make again though, just with a totally different frosting.

what is up with women (young or old) finding almost anything that's 'mini' cute? case in point, i am not an animal person (like...ever.) but why do i feel like squeeing on the inside when i see cute & small animals. i was at Cold Storage when i saw this mini grater and decided then and there that i had to have it. was it because i needed it? i already had a normal-sized one at home. was it because it was cheap? maybe (it was less than 2$). but it was mostly because guys! have you seen how small and cute it is?!

urgh! according to the package, it's 'ideal for grating fresh garlic, ginger & chocolate' but what they didnt say is that it is also ideal for insane people with no control or restraint.

Fresh Bulgogi has been around for awhile, have you guys tried it? i had it for the second time earlier tonight at E-Hub (so crowded!) and sure, the steamboat & bbq kicks ass (more than Seoul Garden actually) but the bimbap is also pretty good.

scratch that, it was really good. we had the garlic chicken one and at $9.90 it was worth it because they were very generous with well, pretty much everything. my mom and i tried zingdo when they first opened eons ago and it put me off kimchi but this one i loved (weird right, since they're from the same company).

i shall end this post with a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche;

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane
by those who could not hear the music."

so please, please, please dance.